Spain and immigration

Still they come

A new route, but an old problem

IT HAS been another difficult week for the guardians of Spain's frontiers. Last weekend more than 460 sub-Saharan illegal immigrants reached the Canary Islands in large, fragile fishing-boats that had set out from west Africa. In the first four months of 2006, the number reaching the islands has already passed the total for all of 2005. Some 5,000 people have come, following a new and highly dangerous route which starts in the faraway ports of Mauritania or Senegal. Officials say that as many as 1,000 immigrants may have drowned on this route in the past six months alone. “They are willing to take quite enormous risks,” comments Rickard Sandell, at Madrid's Elcano Royal Institute.

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Like a liquid flowing downhill, illegal immigrants naturally take the path of least resistance. Dam the river, as Spain and others have found, and it eventually trickles around the obstacle, however big. “It is the traffickers who keep an eye out for the difficult places, and try to avoid them,” says Gemma Pinyol, of the CIDOB Foundation in Barcelona.

Spain is the nearest thing that the European Union has to a frontier with Africa. The gap between the mainland and Africa is just nine miles (14km) at the Strait of Gibraltar. There are also direct land borders at the Spanish north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. In contrast the closest Canary island to Africa, Fuerteventura, lies some 100km from the coast.

Over the past decade Spain has placed ever more obstacles along these frontiers. When boatloads of immigrants began arriving on beaches near Gibraltar in the 1990s, it installed an early-warning radar system based on one that Israel developed to stop seaborne Palestinian guerrilla raids. When groups of immigrants pushed their way into Ceuta and Melilla, fences were erected. They were strengthened last year, after the existing ones were stormed by hundreds of would-be immigrants.

Spain has worked hard abroad as well. It has persuaded African countries to help. Morocco patrols its side of the frontier more efficiently. Mauritania is prepared to do the same. The barriers, plus the help from African governments, have made it much harder for immigrants. But they have clearly not stopped them. The latest wave has, once again, flowed around. What was once a voyage of under 20km across the Strait of Gibraltar can now be more than 1,000km from ports in Senegal. Since Fuerteventura has now installed an early-warning system, the new targets are Tenerife and Gran Canaria. Some of the latest batch of arrivals had sailed from Senegal, the Spanish government's delegate on the Canaries told local journalists. The journey was thought to have taken them a week or more.

All the signs are that the numbers of would-be immigrants are likely to rise further. The population boom in much of sub-Saharan Africa is far outstripping economic growth. “We are seeing the tip of what could become a much bigger problem,” says Elcano's Mr Sandell. He adds that, if Spain were to become too successful at blocking its frontiers, immigrants would simply shift their efforts to Italy or other European countries. “Spain is the nearest frontier but, given the risks they take, I would not exclude much more extended travelling across the Mediterranean,” he says. “It is probably more of a European problem than a Spanish problem.” The solution, if there is one, may have to be European as well.